Robert, Thanks for your email. For TSM, the IBMtape driver should be installed in Exclusive mode. And I double checked with the guy who recently installed the drivers, and assured me they were installed in Exclusive mode.
But your email did help me solve the problem. From the Windows server running the Lan-free client, I ran ntutil, (similar to tapeutil in AIX, but not quite). From the ntutil prompt, I: 1) Chose option 1, and entered the tape device that had been previously reserved i.e. "tape6". (Check in Device Manager or the TSM Management Console) to be sure you have the right device name. Even though Device Manager may call it \\.\Tape6, put in tape6 at the prompt for the device name. 2) Chose option 20, to open the device. This worked correctly. 3) Chose option 21, to close the device. This worked correctly. I repeated this for all five devices that were in "Retry Dismount Failed" state. After just a few minutes, the "Retry Dismount Failed" state cleared up on the Library Master. Everything's been fine since. Thanks a bunch! Best Regards, John D. Schneider The Computer Coaching Community, LLC Office: (314) 635-5424 / Toll Free: (866) 796-9226 Cell: (314) 750-8721 -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] "Retry Dismount Failure" that won't clear From: Robert Clark <robert.cla...@usbank.com> Date: Tue, April 27, 2010 6:10 pm To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Hi John, I seem to recall that tapeutil has a "clear SCSI reserve" command. I also seem to recall that the Windows version fo Atape can be installed in exclusive or non-exclusive mode. If set to exclusive mode by mistake, it may cause the symptom you're seeing? (When I say Atape, I mean lintape, IBMTape, or whatever the package is called on a given OS.) Thanks, [RC] From: "John D. Schneider" <john.schnei...@computercoachingcommunity.com> To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Date: 04/27/2010 02:42 PM Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] "Retry Dismount Failure" that won't clear Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU> Robert, That's a good thing to bring up, but Removable Storage Manager is Disabled. We are emulating an IBM3584 library, with 64 virtual LTO1 tape drives. We use the IBMTape drivers on Windows, and Atape on AIX. We just upgraded the drivers a few weeks ago. I guess it is conceivable that we are hitting something caused by the new drivers. Incidentally, the "Retry Dismount Failure" has disappeared for now, although it will probably come back, since it has happened a few times, although it is always weeks or months in between, so it is tough to nail down the exact circumstance that caused it. Using the advice from an old ADSM-L post, I: 1) deleted the paths to the Lan-free clients, 2) deleted the path to the library master 3) deleted the drive. Then, when I did a "q mount", it would still show "Retry Dismount Failure", but it wouldn't show what drive! Instead of: ANR8380I LTO volume V50317 is mounted R/O in drive EPC-LTO1-006 (/dev/epc-lto1-006), status: RETRY DISMOUNT FAILURE. it would say: ANR8380I LTO volume V50317 is mounted R/O, status: RETRY DISMOUNT FAILURE. Strange. Then stranger still, about 15 minutes later, the library master instance crashed. We brought it back up, and all the "Retry Dismount Failure"s were gone! I should be happy, but I'm not, for two reasons. First, this is bound to come up again. And second, the virtual tape device is still screwed up. It must have a SCSI reserve still set. When I try to configure a path for it now, it gives me: ANR8420E DEFINE PATH: An I/O error occurred while accessing drive EPC-LTO1-006. How do you clear the SCSI reserve in a virtual tape drive? I may have to reboot the whole EDL to do it. Best Regards, John D. Schneider The Computer Coaching Community, LLC Office: (314) 635-5424 / Toll Free: (866) 796-9226 Cell: (314) 750-8721 -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] "Retry Dismount Failure" that won't clear From: Robert Clark <robert.cla...@usbank.com> Date: Tue, April 27, 2010 12:25 pm To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU I would make sure RSM on the Windows host is not grabbing the tape drives. What type of library is being emulated? [RC] From: "John D. Schneider" <john.schnei...@computercoachingcommunity.com> To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Date: 04/27/2010 08:25 AM Subject: [ADSM-L] "Retry Dismount Failure" that won't clear Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU> Greetings, I have been through the archives for help with this one, but I still don't have an answer. I support a TSM 5.4.3.0 server running on AIX 5.3ML9. EMC Disk Library for virtual tape, configured as 64 LTO1 tape drives. This server is the library master for both AIX and Windows Lan-free clients running the 5.4.2.0 Lan-free storage agent. We came in yesterday and found 5 virtual tapes mounted, but in "Retry Dismount Failure" state: ANR8380I LTO volume V50135 is mounted R/O in drive EPC-LTO1-025 (/dev/epc-lto1-025), status: RETRY DISMOUNT FAILURE. ANR8380I LTO volume V50128 is mounted R/O in drive EPC-LTO1-040 (/dev/epc-lto1-040), status: RETRY DISMOUNT FAILURE. ANR8380I LTO volume V50097 is mounted R/O in drive EPC-LTO1-044 (/dev/epc-lto1-044), status: RETRY DISMOUNT FAILURE. ANR8380I LTO volume V50129 is mounted R/O in drive EPC-LTO1-047 (/dev/epc-lto1-047), status: RETRY DISMOUNT FAILURE.. ANR8380I LTO volume V50317 is mounted R/O in drive EPC-LTO1-006 (/dev/epc-lto1-006), status: RETRY DISMOUNT FAILURE. They have been in this state over 24 hours now, and we can't clear them. We can tell this is problem caused because of a confusion between the Library master and one of the Lan-free agents. My surmise is that the lan-free agent thinks it is finished with the drives, but that message never gets to the TSM server. Later the TSM Server's timeout logic tries to reclaim the drive, but the lan-free server still has a SCSI reserve on the tape drive, so the TSM Server can't open it to talk to it. We went out to the EDL appliance and dismounted the virtual tapes from the drives, so they are empty. We have tried restarting both the TSM server software and Lan-free agent. We have rebooted the Windows server running the Lan-free agent. We have deleted and rediscovered the AIX rmt devices on the library master. All those worked fine. We did an 'update server STL-PVMCONBKP02 forcsync=yes' between the server an TSM server and the lan-free agent, but that didn't help. The 'Retry Dismount Failure' errors still persist. Every little while we still get the following messages in the server activity log. Since the session between the server and the lan-free agent STL-PVMCONBKP02 isn't getting any errors, it is not a simple communication problem between them. 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0408I Session 11595 started for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows) (Tcp/Ip) for library sharing. (SESSION: 11595) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0408I Session 11596 started for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows) (Tcp/Ip) for library sharing. (SESSION: 11596) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0408I Session 11597 started for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows) (Tcp/Ip) for library sharing. (SESSION: 11597) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0408I Session 11598 started for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows) (Tcp/Ip) for library sharing. (SESSION: 11598) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0408I Session 11599 started for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows) (Tcp/Ip) for library sharing. (SESSION: 11599) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0409I Session 11595 ended for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows). (SESSION: 11595) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0409I Session 11596 ended for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows). (SESSION: 11596) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0409I Session 11597 ended for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows). (SESSION: 11597) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0409I Session 11598 ended for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows). (SESSION: 11598) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR0409I Session 11599 ended for server STL-PVMCONBKP02 (Windows). (SESSION: 11599) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR1794W TSM SAN discovery is disabled by options. (SESSION: 11595) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8965W The server is unable to automatically determine the serial number for the device. (SESSION: 11595) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8779E Unable to open drive /dev/epc-lto1-044, error number=16. (SESSION: 11595) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR1794W TSM SAN discovery is disabled by options. (SESSION: 11598) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8965W The server is unable to automatically determine the serial number for the device. (SESSION: 11598) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8779E Unable to open drive /dev/epc-lto1-040, error number=16. (SESSION: 11598) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR1794W TSM SAN discovery is disabled by options. (SESSION: 11596) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8965W The server is unable to automatically determine the serial number for the device. (SESSION: 11596) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8779E Unable to open drive /dev/epc-lto1-006, error number=16. (SESSION: 11596) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR1794W TSM SAN discovery is disabled by options. (SESSION: 11599) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8965W The server is unable to automatically determine the serial number for the device. (SESSION: 11599) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8779E Unable to open drive /dev/epc-lto1-047, error number=16. (SESSION: 11599) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR1794W TSM SAN discovery is disabled by options. (SESSION: 11597) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8965W The server is unable to automatically determine the serial number for the device. (SESSION: 11597) 04/27/10 08:16:51 ANR8779E Unable to open drive /dev/epc-lto1-025, error number=16. (SESSION: 11597) We have seen this before, but rarely, and in the past we were always able to clear it by restarting the Lan-free agent and the TSM server software. But this time that isn't working. FYI, every once in a while, the 'Retry Dismount Failure' will change to 'Dismounting' for a few seconds, then goes back to 'Retry Dismount Failure' again. So TSM is obviously trying to do something to clear it. Can anyone suggest a procedure for clearing this condition? Best Regards, John D. Schneider The Computer Coaching Community, LLC Office: (314) 635-5424 / Toll Free: (866) 796-9226 Cell: (314) 750-8721 U.S. BANCORP made the following annotations --------------------------------------------------------------------- Electronic Privacy Notice. 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